Of all the sky map apps we tested, this was the most reliable and full-featured. The Sky Map mode uses your phone's compass and accelerometer to tell where you're pointing it and shows which stars, constellations and celestial objects you're looking at.

While not as full-featured as Night Sky Tools, this is much smoother and easier to use while still covering most bases. If you're just starting out or want something to show the kids, this may be your best first choice.

Both Vortex and NST handle the built-in compass the best of those tested.

Mobile Observatory is slightly less obvious than NST and Vortex but with a bit of use it combines the best of both. Given a few seconds the sensors will nail the right spot and it takes little to no celebration to work. You get what you pay for.

The function for tracking solar objects like Galilean moons is unexpectedly easy and useful.

Planetarium is geared toward telling you where celestial objects are, when they will rise and when they will set. Sadly, it is the ugliest and least intuitive app of the bunch. Others do it better, and the advertisements are annoying.

What would otherwise be a gorgeous and easy-to-use planetarium app is rendered useless by poor compass integration and awkward controls. It also lacks the depth of information of NST and Vortex is better for beginners.

Star Chart is easy to use and pretty, but suffers the same compass issues as Stellarium. The free version is worth a try in case your handset is more compatible, so check it out. Sadly a lot of the information in this app is hidden behind relatively expensive in-app purchases.

While the hardware integration for SkySafari was the worst of the apps I tested, it still had a smooth panning and zooming action and was probably the fastest of the apps.

The tested version of this app was the $1.89 SkySafari 4. More expensive and more featured editions exist up to SkySafari Pro at $44.99 so be careful to pick the version for your needs by reading the feature list for each.

AMAZING SPACE

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